What was your first experience writing a cover letter? Did you Google an example? Did you go to your school's career center to look for help? Did you go ask your experienced friends for some advice? Welp, based on my experience, nobody can help you better than you do homework on your own. They might give you some advice; nonetheless, at the end of day, it is your career, not theirs. If you want your cover letter stand out, follow the 2 simple steps below:
1) Research An Issue or A Strength. Ideally, you want to be as specific as possible. If you apply for a position at a specific location, you want to make sure to scout the location, in person, a couple times, and gather all online information (such as customer's and employee's review). Then, you will arrive with an issue or an strength of that specific location/job has. If you apply for a general corporate job, research the company as a whole. 2) Offer Your Contribution. Again, being specific is key. I recommend listing your skills as bullet points as well as some related accomplishments in the past. Example, when I applied for Microsoft back in 2016, I listed out the problem that Microsoft had with getting new start-ups to be interested to pitch with Microsoft instead of a Private Equity or Venture Capitalist. So I proposed that if hired, I would personally go to start-up fairs to set up a table and speak with start-ups on behalf of Microsoft. I also mentioned my success helping other small-medium businesses find investors in the past. In summation, if you wish to have your cover letter to stand out, you need to roll up your sleeves and put in some efforts. Let me know if you have any comments or questions. Happy Hunting, The Kid
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Cover letters, nowadays, are frankly boring. They all look the same. They are all designed to apply for hundred of jobs. What can we do to make our resume different? How can a recruiter tell if our resume is unique for this particular job? The answer is: Referrals.
Let me get this straight. Referral traditionally means someone recommends you for a certain job. But it can also mean you have talked to someone in the company. Here are some of the methods you can use to find their names and put in your cover letter: 1) Career fairs. I know it sounds boring, but you pretty much already paid for it with tuition. Besides school, I usually go to local career fair. It looks even more boring, but I sometime find unusual big firms like Boeings. 2) Coffee hour. Some schools might host coffee hour, which is a great way to engage 1-on-1 with the recruiter. These spots are usually limited, make sure you sign up early. 3) Open house. I'm not a big fan of this, but hey! Why not if it's free. It is a bit messy, but you have a chance to watch some presentations as well as an office tour and free snacks. 4) LinkedIn. Sounds weird enough. Now you can interact with recruiter online. Just simply send them an "InMail". On average, I send out 10 requests and receive around 3-4 replies. Still a pretty good response rate considering just sitting at my laptop. 5) Virtual scenario. I don't encourage my clients to do this, but faking is still an option. If you run out of time and you are very good at making things up (I don't), this might be a temporary solution. Make sure you paint out answers for all possible follow-up questions. After going through some or all of these methods, simply put in the person's name (along with their ranking/position) in a paragraph. This simple strategy will show the company that you have gone an extra mile doing your homework (not just sitting at home Google some random facts). Happy Hunting, The Kid You spend so much time crafting perfect content of cover letter. You have great story of academia and career. But how could we start out a cover letter that does not sound odd. It is similar to a conversation when you shake hand a stranger and try to introduce yourself. How can we show respect to reader and make a good impression? Here is the secret that master writers don't want you to know:
1) At top should be contact info. The format should be similar to your resume. Check out the post on "All-in-1 Resume" tab for details. 2) Smart date. Always include a date on your cover letter. The trick here is to include a smart version. For example: if you are going to submit your resume on Christmas Eve, make sure you input something like December 15th or 20th. The reason is this reverse date trick the reader's conscious mind that you have been spending a few days writing the letter, which seems more personalized. 3) Company name. Do your homework and make sure this is right. For example, Deloitte, a big financial services company, has many affiliates. It could be Deloitte Consulting, Deloitte LLP, etc. The company name is similar to a person's name. Getting it wrong will show how careless you are on the application, not to mention could be on the actual job. 4) Company location. Again, do some research, if possible, try to figure out where is your application is heading. Does the company own the whole building? A suite? Or a virtual office? 5) Warm greetings. If you are thinking about "To whom it may concern", you might be doomed to get 1% response or lower. I still could not believe I paid $300+ for a writing firm to tell me to use this phrase. If you know exactly who is reading your letter, include his/her name. If you know the department that process your application, put down the department's title. I am a lazy person, so I put "Greetings Recruiting Department/Specialist" (appropriate 90% of the time). Happy Hunting, The Kid This story is about a New-Yorker, who applied for over a hundred jobs and got 0 response (yes, this is not a typo). He decided to change the strategy for his cover letter in the following format:
1) Identify the problem. 55% of hiring manager would not even read your cover letter. So instead of start out saying "Hello, my name is Mr. Boring", he wrote: "As a Veteran of Details.com and Vs. Magazine, I've seen how crazy fashion month can get." The lesson here is to spell out the problem that is not included in the job description and many hiring managers love this. 2) Agitate the problem. In other words, be a bit dramatic about how the problem can be. He wrote: "If you're looking for someone who can not only keep up, but also deliver that SEO-friendly, 75-page street style slideshow five minutes ago." 3) Offer a solution and it's YOU. He wrote in his last paragraph: "Since TeamSite and I are old friends, I'll be able to hit the ground running — and whether it's churning out a dozen blog posts per day or refreshing the homepage with breaking fashion month news, I've done it all. Most importantly, you'll never hear me say, "That's not my job!" 4) Close with confidence. Instead of a typical closing "Hope to hear from you soon!", he wrote: "I'd love to learn more about your production needs and how I can help!" With this format, he was able to schedule interviews with many decent firms (Vogue, Instyle, Rolling Stone). If you currently have low response rate in your job hunt, why not try out this method or you can work with me now to bring your A-game on. Happy Hunting, The Kid |
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